Relativity (25 page)

“Did you hear a seagull?” I ask as we step out of the tree and into what feels like soft soil, sandy and loose.

“Yes,” Mom says. “And a lot of mosquitoes.” She mumbles
hurry, hurry, hurry
under her breath, waiting for the door to close behind us.

She offers her little key-ring flashlight, but I tell her I have a better one and fish it out of my backpack. I aim the light at the portal, half expecting it to be a palm tree in this universe, rather than an oak. But its massive trunk and gray bark remain the same, though it’s covered by a veil of fungus. The canopy of leaves make their blanket overhead.

“Maybe there was a meteor strike here, and it changed the atmosphere,” I suggest.

Mom doesn’t comment. The moment the door seals shut, she’s ready. “Get back in,” she commands. No nonsense.

She makes the mistake of grabbing the knob with her entire palm, rather than touching it with the tip of a finger. For several terrifying seconds, she’s bound to the knob, convulsing from the electrical current. Suddenly, she’s released. A jolt propels her, and she’s thrown onto her back.

“Mom!” I toss my crutches aside and drop to my knees, pressing my hand against her cheek. She’s sprawled across the ground like a wounded bird. Wings splayed. “Mom? Can you hear me? Can you move?”

“Yes.” She rolls onto her side and slowly sits up.

“Can you stand?” I brush the sand from her hair, then drape her arm over my shoulder and try to pull her up with me. My good leg quivers; it isn’t strong enough to lift both of us.

“Stop,” Mom says. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

“I’m already hurt. Can you use my crutches? Hey! Don’t lose consciousness!” I gently slap her cheeks. Her face is cold, despite the greenhouse temperatures. “Look at me!”

“I’m okay,” she says. She crawls toward the oak.

“Take your time.” I tuck the flashlight into my back pocket so I can get the crutches under my armpits and go ahead of her. Between the darkness, the blizzard of insects, and my broken glasses, I’m blind. I feel my way back to the opening in the trunk, patting my hand along the rough bark.

“We don’t have time,” she calls to me.

I step inside the portal, drop everything, and extend my arms.
She’s walking on her knees and is halfway through the door when she collapses backward. Swearing under my breath, I kneel next to her and put my finger to her neck to find her pulse. I put my ear to her mouth until I feel her warm breath.

Then the door starts to close in its relentless, steady way.

“Get inside!” I scream at her, pulling on her legs, her pants wet from all the rainstorms she’s been through tonight. “Try, Mom. Anything. Come on!” Her eyes jerk open, and with a hint of awareness she struggles to move forward.

I yank on her waist, and she sits up, wrapping an arm around my neck. The open space diminishes. Twelve inches, six inches. I shove my backpack into the sliver that remains, trying to buy an extra moment, trying to get the last of her inside. There’s a sickening crushing sound, Mom’s screams, and the tree seems to spit both Mom and my backpack into its interior. Swallowed. The door seals shut. We pant and shiver in total darkness.

“Mom?”

“My wrist.” She moans in agony. I find her head and run my fingers through her hair.

“It’s going to be okay,” I say. “We’re almost home.”

“You’re almost home. I’ve got farther to go.” She presses something into my fingers. It’s my flashlight. Though I really don’t want to know, I click it on and shine the light on her mangled hand.

“Your wrist looks okay,” I lie to Mom, and myself. “I’m sure it’s just a couple broken bones. No biggie.”

“Liar,” Mom says, and the word stings. I have been a liar, a fake.
Posing as her true daughter, trying to step into her parallel life with the intention of stealing it for myself.

The tree’s engine seems to growl at me, angry, threatening. I pull myself to my feet and point the flashlight at the wheel. I wipe my hands on my jeans, but they’re slick with sweat. “I need those gardening gloves,” I mumble, digging into my backpack. My fingers don’t find the gloves, but I do find socks. I wipe the one remaining lens of my glasses clean, then put my hands into the socks to use them as mittens. I turn the disk and—
clang!
The disk suddenly drops a foot.

“What was that?” Mom asks, alarmed.

“The steering wheel just slid down the pole!”

“Is it broken?

“I don’t know!”

Before I can assess the damage, the door opens upon Universe Ten, marked by a runic symbol that looks like a capital
H
but without the left-hand stem.

At first I think I’m seeing large snowflakes, suspended and swirling through the air. But the air is hot and smells sulfuric. I squint into the darkness, and add a little logical deduction. Yuck. It’s ash and soot, not pristine snowflakes.

“What’s it look like?” Mom asks.

“The apocalypse,” I say, squinting harder. The landscape is an indistinct, glowing blur. But even with my bad vision, I can tell that the world is burning.

“What’s that smell?”

“Fire,” I say. “I think it’s been all lightning and no rain here.”

I shine the flashlight on Mom, flat on her back. There’s no way she’s getting up. “You’ve gotta stay in here while I go out,” I tell her.

“No, Ruby,” she says. “Stay inside with me. Maybe the door will close.”

“I haven’t tried that,” I admit. “I always get out, the door closes, then I have to touch the knob to get back in.” The tree’s engine hums, surges suddenly, stutters, then regains its steadiness. I don’t like the sound of it. At all.

“Let’s wait it out.” Mom’s voice is a weak whisper.

I sit next to her and hold her hand. Smoke blows into the tree and into our sinuses, but the air is thick and warm, and the heat feels good.

I pull my shirt over my nose and mouth to filter the smoke. Mom hacks.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing. The door hasn’t budged.”

“Try turning the wheel.”

“Okay.”

It’s now at knee level, so I lean over it, into it, but it refuses to turn. And it’s not just slippery; it’s stuck. No give whatsoever, even with the socks over my hands.

“It might be broken,” I say, hoping I don’t sound as frantic as I feel. “I’m sure it will turn once the door is closed.”

Mom hears me straining and tells me to stop. “Save your strength,” she says.

I stand on one leg inside the doorway, looking out. I’m not sure, but that might be Ó Direáin High School burning, throwing plumes of flame and smoke into the sky.

“It looks like primordial earth,” I say.

“Volcanoes?” Mom mumbles.

“Right.”

Universe Ten is disintegrating into ash. I imagine downtown Ó Direáin crumbling. Shanghai, Sweet Treats. All the books in the library, consumed by flames. Mom’s apartment. Her denim couch, her messy bedroom.

Mom coughs and coughs and can’t stop. I sink to the floor and gently shake her. “Mom, the air is poisonous. We’ve gotta get the door shut. I’m going to step out, wait for the door to start closing, then jump back in with you. Maybe it will finish closing, and we can move on.”

She’s silent, motionless.

“Mom?”

I press my finger against her neck and find her pulse. Her breath is warm against my cheek. But she’s unconscious. Her fingers are icy, so I press them between my palms, trying to rub some warmth back into them.

“Mom?” I bury my face in her neck. “Please wake up. Please, please, please. I promise to take you back to Universe Four, back to your home.” I wait for her to respond, but she says nothing. “I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll take you wherever you want. I’ll get you there.”

Her silence is more than I can bear. “Back in ten seconds,” I say before limping out of the tree, backpack in hand in case I need to wedge it in the door again. The moment both feet are outside the tree, I expect the door to start closing. But it doesn’t.

I force myself to count to thirty before giving up, then step back inside. “It’s okay, Mom. Let me try the wheel again.”

A gust of wind carries a cloud of smoke into the tree. Horrendous. My eyes sting and water; my throat is seared with hot pinpricks.

Of course the disk won’t budge. “Go!” My muscles strain and fatigue. I abandon the wheel and proceed to kick and spit at the door. “Close, you stupid thing!” I grab the edge and lean backward, trying to pull it to get it moving, but I can barely get my fingers around its massive width. Futile.

“I don’t think the wheel’s going to advance until we’re both out,” I tell Mom, though she’s silent. “It might not work at all anymore, but we have to try.”

We need to hurry, to escape this stew of carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, ammonia—unbreathable air. Desperate, I look at her slumped body. It will take every molecule of strength I have, but I’ll get her out.

I sit on the ground just outside the tree, hook my arms under hers, then press my heels into the ground and tug. Once we’re mostly outside, the door starts closing again. There must be some sort of internal sensor, a mechanism in the floor, that can feel when the tree is empty of passengers. The only problem is, Mom’s legs from the knees down are still draped over the threshold.

We only have moments.

“Wake up, Mom!” Coughing and gagging against the sooty air, I’m barely keeping pace with the door. If I don’t get her out—now—she’ll be crushed. A massive explosion booms behind me, and a sudden rush of flames casts an orange light on the tree. Mom’s ankles are still inside. I scream again, pull once more, and she’s out.

The door seals shut.

“We made it, Mom.” I pant, gulping in toxic smoke, willing myself to stand up and touch the doorknob. The shock of electricity is momentarily paralyzing; it throws me back onto the ground. The tree door opens again. I gather my senses, hook my arms under Mom’s armpits, and then reverse the procedure, screaming and tugging on her, until we cross the tree’s threshold and are back inside. The door closes behind us.

Retching and dizzy, I try to turn the wheel. Universe One is only seconds away. But it won’t advance to the next position. I twist and twist, but it simply won’t go.

“Turn!” I scream, shredding my vocal cords.

It’s stuck. My lungs are collapsing. We’re suffocating inside this dark and unforgiving chamber. This coffin.

“Mom,” I sob. “I’m so sorry. We’re going to die in here.”

Is this what destiny had in mind? Is this my fate? To die with Mom? Maybe I should have been in that car when I was four. Maybe I’m the one who’s been dodging death all these years and it’s finally caught up with me.

I hold Mom’s hand, waiting to black out. It will only be a matter of minutes. I lay my head on her chest so I can feel her heart, still beating.

She squeezes my fingers. “Ruby,” she says in a raspy whisper.

I press my ear to her lips so I can hear. “I’m here, Mom.”

“Please,” she says. “Undo what you’ve done. You have to go back and reverse it somehow.”

“Mom,” I say. “I can’t—”

An idea jolts me, resuscitates me.

“Reverse!” I scream, crawling back to the wheel. “I need to try it in reverse.”

The wheel slides counterclockwise, returning to the position of Universe Nine. Fresh air blows into the tree, clearing the smoke from the interior of the trunk. Sand darts across the threshold, and the salty, seaside air seems to rouse Mom.

“Are you awake?” I ask, shining the flashlight at her face.

She nods.

“I think you’re okay,” I tell her, brushing a mosquito from her nose. “You passed out from the pain.”

She tries to sit up, holding her wrist limply in her lap.

“Steady.” I wrap my arms around her, trying to offer support.

“What about you? Your leg?”

“Bad,” I admit. “It’s seeping through the bandages and sticking to my jeans.” I think of Dr. Leonard warning me about pus.
A chill shakes me despite the balmy humidity here. I’m sure I have a fever.

Mom shifts her weight, pressing her back against the inside wall. “Where are we?”

“Universe Nine. We’re going in reverse now.”

“Good,” she says.

“We hit a roadblock, so we have to double back.” I shine the flashlight at the wheel mechanism, and inspect the pole. There’s the horizontal groove we’d been traveling along. But after Universe Nine, the horizontal groove ends and gives way to a vertical groove going down. So when we reached that point, the disk plummeted a foot, and then settled into place—at the start of another horizontal groove. Poised to rotate in the opposite direction.

“Can you stand?” I ask.

She says yes, and I help her to her feet. “Crutches?” she asks.

“They’re gone. I left them inside the tree, and they vanished.”

“Thank goodness you didn’t leave me,” she says.

“The tree wouldn’t let me,” I say. “Thankfully.” Maybe the tree has a way of distinguishing human cargo from inanimate objects.

We hobble and lurch getting out of the oak, and then we turn to face the dreaded knob. With every touch, it delivers more amperes, more current, more impact. At some point, it will be deadly.

Mom reaches for it, and I slap her away. “No way. I’ll do it.” The electricity tears through me, but I remain on my feet. “Piece of cake,” I say through vibrating teeth.

Mom holds her wrist against her stomach, her shoulders slumped,
looking weighed down by exhaustion, pain. “How much time do you think we have left?”

“Zero.” The tree’s humming, engine-like noise has gone up in pitch. It’s straining.

“So let’s keep moving,” she says, determination in her voice.

Back inside the tree, Mom steps toward the wheel. “Maybe we don’t have to go one at a time,” she says. “See if you can spin it all the way to four. All at once.”

I wipe my hands dry on my jeans. “I’ll try,” I say doubtfully, gripping the disk and turning it. It settles into the notch for Universe Eight, but I keep applying pressure. Surprisingly, I can feel that it’s not completely resisting. It doesn’t seem locked into place.

“Is it working?”

“Maybe,” I say, wishing I still had those gardening gloves. “Do you know what happened to that pair of socks?” My knuckles ache and my shin burns, but there’s some movement, a hint of possibility. And then it goes. “We’re at seven!”